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Human Slaves, Indeed.

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CubbyWolf46

Junior Guinea Pig
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Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Soooooo..

I have been freaking out trying to figure out why Argo was losing a bit of weight and thought he might be sick.. turns out he just likes to scare the crap out of mumma. As some of you know from another of my posts I have been trying to ween my boys off of the wheat and chaff (from their rescue) and oats. I keep trying to figure out why Argo lost some weight and started to get worried, he is eating all his veggies and scoffs them down like hes starving hungry, I see him eat hay.. it turns out that he has been turning his nose up at the pellets I have been transitioning them onto. So all he has been eating is some hay and veggies whenever they are available.. he has been going on a hunger strike. All I saw in the food bowl is a bunch of pellets sprawled everywhere where he has picked through the bowl for the "good stuff" and left the unappealing yet healthy pellets. Because I have been putting more and more pellets in their food and less of the other stuff he has just been eating less and less of it.

I put a handful of wheat and chaff in the bowl today just out of curiosity of whether it was his appetite or if he was being picky.. he practically rammed Salem out of the way and dug into it like a drug addict.

What am I going to do if that's all he will eat? They aren't the best pellets but I can't find any better ones and I've looked.

He will literally stop eating instead of eating what is put infront of him. I don't want to make him anorexic, and I swear that's how far he would take it just to get that wheat and chaff. He loves his capsicum and tomatoes.. won't even look twice at the lettuce anymore. It drives me crazy how picky he is. Salem will eat anything and everything I give him, even the pellets. Argo goes on a hunger strike instead to get my attention. I am lost for what to do about this. He is very cheeky.

Has anyone else got a food snob piggy?
 
I'll just add on that before I adopted him, Argo mostly ate wheat and chaff and that was most of his diet, even though he had access to hay I suspect that he only nibbled at it as he does here too. How do I turn him onto hay more? I have gotten the best quality fresh green grass hay from a produce nearby, when I first switched to it the boys both dove into it, they didn't much care for their old meadow hay. But he mostly relies on the wheat and chaff for his diet and I can't ween him off of it because I'm afraid he will lose too much weight and get sick.

He now has a bit of variety in his diet and he still chooses the wheat and chaff over the rest of his dietary needs. I honestly don't know how to handle this, if anyone has any tips that would be great.
 
I had problems with my first 2 guinea pigs trying to get them off muesli. It took me a long time to get them slowly increased to more pellets. They still have to have a bit of muesli but over time have managed to eat far more pellets. This way they didn't lose weight.
 
Yes you don't want him to lose weight. So very slowly increasing pellets bit by bit may help.
 
By the way, I also went through something like 4 different kinds of pellets before I found any they bothered with.
 
Well judging by the way he has been sitting with his head in the food bowl munching away all afternoon since I put the wheat and chaff in there, I am guessing his weight is going to be coming back on pretty quickly. I swear he has perked up and become 10x more active since i topped up the wheat and chaff. My poor baby is addicted to junk food :(
 
I did try the Vetafarm first as it's a fescue pellet and fortified with vitamin C. But they were not that keen on it. Then tried Oxbow timothy pellet also fortified with vitamin C but had to order it online as just not something one can find easily in Brisbane. Also very expensive! Still not liked terribly well. Then went through Oxbow organics more expensive but somewhat tolerated more. Finally tried Burgess Excell online from Guinea Pigs Australia (also vitamin C).They are from the UK, and not as expensive as Oxbow, They are definitely eating more of that and don't have to put in as much muesli.

My other 2 boys have always been on Oxbow organics, so I think different pigs may like different foods. I'd keep your other boy on Vetafarm since he seems to like it. Perhaps having Argo on small portions of Vetafarm mixed in with his muesli would help eventually and then slowly increase some more.
 
Would you be able to message me a link to where you buy your current pellets from? I will never buy an oxbow product. It's a short story but I'm sure nobody wants to hear me bash their beloved oxbow brand. Do you also buy your hay online or locally?
 
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